A very youthful composer born in Norway in 1842. Rikard Nordraak died of tuberculosis in Paris in 1866 at the age of 23. He was buried in Berlin and later his casket was transferred to Norway for burial there. He is famous for creating Norway's national anthem, Ja, vi elsker dette landet. Edvard Grieg, who met Nordraak, had high respect for the young man and was responsible for having his longest piano work published, Scherzo Capriccio, Op. 3. Grieg also wrote a piece in Nordraak's memory, Funeral March in Memory of Rikard Nordraak. Nordraak wrote about 40 compositions in all and 25 of them can be heard on the LAWO label [1119]. The disc includes songs and solo piano works performed by soprano Helene Wold with Eugene Asti, pianist. One wonders, given a life of 70 years, what may have come out of the pen of this young man. In the meantime, one can enjoy what has been preserved on this disc, which I understand includes all of the composer's solo piano works. Apparently there were only two opuses published, 1 and 2 with opus 3 provided for publication, as indicated above, by Grieg.